The Existentialist is the existential novel of anticipation and heartbreak. It is an exaggerated rendering of the tides that govern all man's lives. In it a disaffected scholar chides an indifferent world. And it shows the inevitable balance of good for good and bad for bad that heaven tries unyieldingly to approximate on earth. It is a grand theme based on a mythic scale. And it is shrouded in stark imagery. It is the chrystallization of many of the author's earlier themes but with a language style that is increasingly abstract. Set variously at Yale, West Hartford, and asylums, it is as inventive as it is vivid. 2008-2010.